I am an Iranian citizen. I stayed in Canada for 8 months and got a student F1 visa to come to the US to attend graduate school beginning September 2008. At that time, when I was entering the US, the US officer at the US Port of Entry told me since I lived in Canada for a while, if I want to visit Canada for a duration less than a month I do not have to apply for the visa to come back to the US. Now, I am graduated but am still a post-doctoral research fellow at the same school and with my F1 visa. Recently I have been issued Canadian Permanent Residency and I need to land in Canada within the next 2 months.

Currently I have one year commitment to work for the University and I need to return to the US shortly after landing in Canada. My question is that whether I still need to apply for a visa to come back to the US or if I do not need a visa since I have previously lived in Canada?

2 Answers
2

The thing you are talking about is called Automatic Revalidation, where people with valid non-immigrant status with I-94 can visit Canada or Mexico (or in the case of F and J status, also Carribean and adjacent islands) for up to 30 days, and re-enter the U.S. and continue their existing non-immigrant status as long as the I-94 is still valid, even if their visa is expired or is single-use and already used.

However, nationals of Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria cannot use it. So you are out of luck.

I'm Iranian and residing in US with single entrance F-1 visa. I agree that Automatic Revalidation is what the officer has suggested, but it does not work for Iranians now. I think they added those exceptions recently. So it was possible before and not anymore. Not sure about 2008 though!
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Mohammad MoghimiJan 25 '14 at 3:16

This page seems to be a reliable guide to what you need to do in order to leave and re-enter the US. The key thing would seem to be to have a valid F1 visa, be enrolled in a course (I presume the post-doc counts) and carry the necessary documents, signed appropriately. Your university can probably help too. it's very unlikely you are the first person to have done this.

This is not correct. Non-immigrants from most countries can indeed go to Canada for less than 30 days and re-enter the U.S. without a valid visa if they have a valid I-94.
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user102008Jan 25 '14 at 0:46